Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

Build the Web

Since Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, articles don’t exist in isolation. By building links into and out of the article you’re working on, you not only do a service for readers, but you also increase the chances that other editors will come across the article you’re working on, and add their contributions. Wikipedia editors call adding wikilinks building the web.

Here are specific ways for you to build the web:

• Link words in the article to other articles. For example, link jargon and technical terms to articles that explain them. Link words that lead to related articles, especially about organizations, people, and places. Link common words used in a technical or uncommon way. But don’t overlink, as discussed in the box on How to Create Internal Links.

  When you add links, check to make sure they don’t end up at disambiguation pages (???). While someone will eventually fix them, they defeat most of the purpose of linking in the first place. (You can also link to just a single section of an article, as described on Incoming Links to Article Sections.)

• Red links are an opportunity, not a problem. If you think there should be an article about something, but there isn’t, create the wikilink anyway. If the wikilink turns red, showing that such an article doesn’t exist, then check the spelling (a Google search is good) and recheck the capitalization (except for the very first letter, it matters in Wikipedia page names).

  If you find there’s a relevant article ...